


Heather in the Cellar

by catc10



Category: Star Trek
Genre: Hiatus, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-02
Updated: 2013-02-01
Packaged: 2017-11-27 21:09:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/666517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catc10/pseuds/catc10
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ONCE UPON A TIME I WROTE A BUNCH OF STUFF FOR THE ST_XI_KINK MEME AND THIS IS SOME OF IT.<br/>Prompt/Fill: http://st-xi-kink-meme.livejournal.com/8704.html?thread=7555328#t7555328</p>
<p>Chekov and McCoy are stranded on an pre-industrial planet, are mourning their lost friends/loves, and having to make their new way in a world that doesn't like the Federation.</p>
<p>Oh, and they have Spock and Uhura's daughter to raise, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Cellar

It was unlikely that the others had survived. Chekov swallowed hard. It was unlikely they could be rescued. The teen held a dark-skinned infant close. It was unlikely that either the baby, or the doctor, or himself, would ever see space from a ship again.

Chekov clutched a baby tight and sobbed out tears long gone dry that wracked his body, curled in a small ball on a stiff cot, tucked out of the way in a spaciously cramped, dark basement storeroom.

His and doc-Leonard McCoy’s new home.

***

Perhaps he should count himself lucky, afterall, he was alive, as was Uhura and Spock’s infant child, christened as T’ta’hal, but called by most her English name, Heather, a healthy girl named for a friend Uhura lost to disease as a child, her inspiration towards linguistics, and later, xeno-linguistics. Luckier still, both Chekov and the child were accompanied by the Federation’s most decorated and celebrated working physician. Three members in their new troupe, an auspicious number, and a good number –three dimentional space, three points to make a plain, three sided triangles as the most stable of shapes…but it didn’t make the teen feel any better.

The cellar room smelt of barely damp stone and the highly compacted dirt of its floor. Their corner of which was bare, a double-wide cot that all three shared as well as one thick quilt to keep out the evening chills. A tiny table held a basin and pitcher for washing, and a small, dirty mirror was propped up to the wall. There were three shelves that held a very few valuble changes of clothes, one comb, and one razor. And that –only those things, given to them by their allies in this world –was all the little group of Federation refugees could call their own. Some Clothes, hand-me-downs in worn linens of faded earthen colors, one thick toothed iron comb, and one straight razor, whose silver plate was chipping in places, but whose bone handle was finely crafted, and had been well looked after.

Chekov fingered the items, and picked up the razor, fingertips exploring the raised edges where plate had fallen away to cover an iron base. He folded it closed and open, and thought back, four weeks previous, and an away mission gone horrifyingly, fantastically, _heartbreakingly_ wrong.

His Hikaru, _oh-his Hikaru!_ So brave and kind –a man who was never out of his depth, always perfectly composed. Until the concern was Pavel, of course. They had not been dating, not yet. A few exchanged sweet nothings, across the darkness of their shared room, secretly held hands in corridors, and a singular experience of desperate kissing; right before Pavel would realize that never seeing the Asian man again was a very real possibility. The bitterness of that chance lost was like iron shavings on the back of Pavel’s tongue. Tangy, and it make him want to be sick.

Instead, Pavel put the razor back down and moved back to the bedside in the dim candle light. He prodded at Heather’s side sharply, once, twice, and then her cry pierced the grave-like silence of the place Pavel was beginning to suspect of being a tomb.

“Oh, oh baby, Pasha is so sorry –so sorry—” the teen was quick to scoop the girl up, cooing at her with a broken heart, trying to sooth the discomfort he’d caused, and not entirely certain it was she he was consoling. “—So sorry, Heather, so sorry…Pasha will take you home, home to mama and papa, home—”

The basement door creaked open, a white square of light pouring itself into a patch on the floor.

“Chekov? Is everything alright? Why is Heather crying?”

Leonard McCoy, sweating and dirty, trumped down the stairs, a tall middle-aged man at his heels.

Dully, Chekov turned his gaze upon the intruding men. “She woke up. Go back upstairs.”

The other man looked ready to protest, voice choked, but McCoy put up a hand, silencing him. “Actually, it’s lunchtime, Chekov. Would you like to come up and eat with us?”

The Russian did not hesitate to shake his head in the negative.

“Chekov—Pavel, it’s been a month, and I understand that it’s hard, believe me, I _understand_ , but it isn’t healthy to stay down here in the dark so long. Come up, please.”

The shudder that ran through the teen’s body was violent, and pale eyes pleaded at the men of the wooden stair steps. The other man, their host, whose name Pavel could not recall, briskly turned away, a tan fist pressed to his mouth.

“Gods—don’t make him, Leonard!”

“No. We have to—he’ll get sick!” McCoy descended the few remaining steps and put two thick palms on Chekov’s thinning shoulders. His dark hair fairly brushed the harsh wood of their ceiling, “Listen –do it for Heather, okay?”

Pavel clutched at the quieting child as though the other had threatened to take the dark infant away.

“She needs sunlight, Chekov, to produce vitamin D. Without it, she’ll get sick and die. She needs to be outside at least half an hour every day.”

Chekov whimpered, and the little girl squirmed as he hugged her just a little _too_ tight. “Tomorrow,” he croaked.

McCoy sighed, but nodded, “Tomorrow. I’ll wake you when I do, in the morning before it’s too hot. And you’ll eat your meals with everyone from now on. Tomorrow.”

Chekov, curls falling in his eyes and tangled to a mess, sobbed agreement, and the other man fled up the stairs. Pavel watched McCoy follow more sedately, then the teen curled into the cot, and closed his eyes.


	2. The Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pavel learns some things

True to his word, McCoy woke Chekov at the first grey light of dawn, after a restless night of repeatedly waking to feed Heather. The teen sleepily dressed himself and the baby in their borrowed clothing under the light of a single candle. McCoy then led teen and child up the cellar steps into a bright kitchen, bustling with the activity of two peach-skinned women.

Well, woman and girl, maybe. They glanced at the two men currently residing in their family’s storage basement, and were fast to pull Pavel into a seat, piling a plate of food in front of him.

“Mister McCoy! You hadn’t told me the young man was so sallow! He looks to be on the brink of illness! And I’m sure I need not remind you that Ast hasn’t the use of Federaton medication to heal him.”

“Yes, I’m aware, Anna. I wasn’t fully aware myself of his condition. He’s not been outta that basement since entering it a month ago. The dark hid most of what you’re seeing now.”

“That changes today!” chimed in the girl. “Else would be tragic!”

Chekov heard the conversation taking place as if it pretended he could not hear, and carefully balanced the baby on his lap to eat. It wasn’t long for the remaining spaces on the table to fill, a myriad of people taking their places like instinct had directed them there. Perhaps it had. Each, in turn, looked at their table’s newcomer, and more and more he felt like the oddity at a sideshow –and it make the Russian cringe and pick even more reluctantly at his food.

Then Heather woke, demanding impatiently to be fed.

If one thing could be said of the girl, ‘quiet’ wasn’t it. Her shriek shattered the whole of conversation on the table, and more than one man leapt up ready to face down attackers, holding aloft various pieces of cutlery. They stared at Pavel’s lonely corner wide-eyed.

Shrinking, Pavel placed the pad of his finger in Heather’s mouth, silencing her as she sucked.

One of the men, tall and broad with a thick-set solid trunk, started to laugh. Joined, almost relived, by all the others at the table, “Look at us!” he shouted in a loud jovial voice more suited to laughter and merriment than the rage he’d leapt to his feet in, “Jumping at the cry of a babe! My dear, perhaps it is time to be finding an ear horn for myself and my unmarried lads! The only one of us who did not hop to ready was Jonas, who knew the cry from his own children!”

“I apologize for having some _sense_ , father!” Another dark haired man said, slighter in frame than the first, but who held the same large nose. “A baby’s scream is hardly the same as a gunshot!”

The round of laugher went on without Pavel, who took to chewing up bits of fruit to feed to the little girl who would soon no longer be contented with his index. He fed her with the pad of his finger while the others calmed down from their scare, until one of the women noticed him again.

“ _Blessed be!_ Tch! Someone fetch a bottle of milk for the babe, and some of the tillic juice as well! Young Chekov is feeding her from his own mouth!”

The teenager sank in his hard wooden chair as the gathered family, they _had_ to be family, chuckled some more at his expense, and did as the matron asked, bringing an glass baby’s bottle of thick, white milk, and another of some champagne colored liquid –what had to have been the tillic juice. Chekov eyed the second warily, but McCoy, across the table and down a few seats, next to the jovial father, said, “A tillic is basically an apple, Chekov. Think of an apple crossed with a plum and you’ve pretty much got it.”

Chekov still sipped at it first, though, just to be sure.

Heather was all too happy for the milk, and sucked away happily until Chekov’s own meal was finished and the others were greedily vacuuming down the scraps.

Again, as if instinct, or more probably ingrained habit, took over, everyone quickly cleared the pale wood table, depositing the tin dishes into a deep sink, kissed the girls goodbye and left through a kitchen door that clacked shut on old springs. McCoy thanked the matron and her daughter, kissing neither’s cheek, and then he walked into a different room. It was odd to know that he’d been through the room before, but not remember it. McCoy returned with a light quilt, and motioned Pavel to stand. Heather squirmed at the motion, already willing to fall back asleep, and the quilt was wrapped around them both, and held shut with a brooch.

“C’mon, outside. You promised, Chekov.”

He nodded, and let the older man lead him out the door to the largest porch Pavel had ever seen. It seemed to hug the side of the house and circle around the whole building, though Pavel really couldn’t be sure. His first remembrances of coming to the place were hazy, _if_ they were there. He remembered the bright green trimming on the dusty white of the exterior, but couldn’t remember what the front door looked like.

A breeze drifted by and Pavel was suddenly thankful for the blanket, for even though it wasn’t the bone-hurting cold of his homeland, it was cold after the cradling warmth of the underground. The sky was a clear grey, one side of horizon lightening to pink, the other fading vestiges of navy. The small yard was bounded in by a simple wood ranch-fence –posts spaced a modest distance apart and bridged by an upper and lower rail that gave a sense of perimeter, without a sense of barrier. It had been painted white, once, long ago, and maybe another color before that, but years of children climbing in around and over them hand rendered the fence a worn look where it wasn’t obviously new in replacement parts. Beyond the fence was a field, with long-stocked crops grown over a tall man’s head, placed in neat rows and, at least from what Pavel could tell, disappearing far into the distance.

“It’ll get warm before lunch, sunny day and all,” said a happy soprano to Pavel’s left. It was the girl. “Hi,” she said, “I’m Esther.”

Pavel nodded, rocking Heather in her doze.

“Do you like the rish?”

Pavel only turned to stare at her, not sure was ‘rish’ was, much less why he might like it. Esther, the small dark-haired girl with honey-colored eyes motioned out to the field.

“The rish?”

“I do not know,” Pavel answered honestly. “I do not know anything about this place.”

“Sure you do!” Ester protested. “You know me and my family! And you know that we live here in Burk county, and that Willaville is about an hour cart’s ride north!”

Pavel shook his head, “I’m sorry, Miss Esther, but I don’t. I do not know any of these things.” Then he coughed, voice already tiring.

A moment saw Esther flushed and wide-eyed. She brushed imaginary dust off her puffy-sleeved blouse, an attractive green, “How can you _not_ know?” she asked, “You’ve been here for a _month!_ ”

Pavel didn’t hesitate, “I was in the basement this whole time! I have not even _met_ your family, much less know their names!”

Immediately he wanted to apologize. He didn’t want to snap at the girl, who looked just about ready to tear up. The sun peeked up in the distance, cresting over far-flung hills. She punched his arm with none of the weakness her slender arms suggested. “That’s very rude of you, then! Guess I’ll have to teach you!” The wetness in her eyes dried in her glaring pout.

“Start with the Patriarch!” she announced, “That’s my Da! His name is Peter. He’s the head of our house. If we want to go out and do something, it’s his permission we need, so you mind him!” Pavel didn’t know who he was, of course, but the girl continued on, “The Matriarch is my Ma, and she and I do all the cooking and cleaning!” for a moment, Esther went quieter, a conspiratorial stage-whisper, “Don’t let Ma catch you doing anything stupid. John’s twenty-seven years old and she paddles him as though he were less than half-that when he pulls his silly stunts.”

Pavel must have had a very strange face in response to that, because Esther giggled some more before continuing. “I’ve got three older brothers, Elijah, John, and Jonas!”

“The man with children?”

“Yep! He’s the only one of my brothers who’s married. Pa teases him for it, but Ma’s relieved.” Pavel nodded, and this seemed to satisfy the girl, twisting the hem of her dark skirt where it fell just at her knees.

“Elijah is the one who looks like Da, sat between him and Mister McCoy this morning. You remember?”

Pavel pretended to, and she beamed.

“I think it’s sad that he ain’t got a wife. He’s really strong, just like Da! He’d make a good husband! John is still a kid. I hope he never gets married. It would serve him right! Can you believe that he used to put my shoes out in the snow? Ma had to smack him across his ass hard enough to keep him from sitting comfy for three days before he quit it.” She waited for Pavel’s disbelieving face, “That’s not the worst! He was _twenty two_ when he did that, and I was six! If Jonas hadn’t kept me from puttin’ on my shoes, I could have gotten sick and _died_. Boy, Ma was _upset_ let me tell _you!_

“I can imagine.”

“Jonas is really responsible like that. He’s got more sense than most the rest of us. His wife Ruth is pretty useless, though! She’s quiet as a barn mouse up in their room all day, takin’ care of Jenny. She isn’t exactly right in the head, sometimes, but Jonas loves her anyway, I guess.”

“That doesn’t seem like a nice thing to say, Esther,” the teenager said, shifting Heather on his hip as one of his feet started to go tingly with numbness.

“It’s not,” she agreed, “Don’t tell my Ma.”

“Okay,” Pavel agreed, “So there is your Papa and babushka, Peter and…” he raised a pale eyebrow.

“Oh, Elisha!”

“Peter and Elisha, and your three brothers, Elijah, John, and Jonas, who has a wife, Ruth, and a daughter Jenny.”

“Jennifer. And Matthew. But I don’t like him. He’s an ass, too, like John.”

“And you are Esther.”

She beamed.

“See?” she said, “You know things!”

“Yes,” said Pavel, feeling the sun, bright and warm on his face and rousing Heather into wakefulness, “I suppose that I do.”

As Esther began to waggle her fingers in front of the infants coal-dark eyes, Pavel led them both into sitting on the porch steps, watching the distant figures of Peter, Elijah, John, Jonas, and McCoy walking up and down the rish fields, doing Pavel didn’t know what. Farming, he supposed. There was a lightness to the ex-ensign’s chest, not hopefulness, per se, a lack of gloominess would be more accurate. Esther continued to babble at him, about nothing, the same way Pavel used to do to his mother, and the familiarity of speech, while not exactly homey, was, at least, calming. He stayed out on the porch until the girl was called in by her mother. Somewhere, there was a barn with cows and horses that needed feeding, and a living area that ought be swept, and if the girl dallied in her chores any longer demons were going to come and steal her in the night. Esther hopped up with haste and bid Pavel a fond ‘s’later’.

Pavel nodded and waved Heather’s hand to her. Soon, the baby would be fussing for food. Maybe there was some tillic juice still inside? They could return to the basement, maybe, and take a nap until lunch, when Leonard would come fetch them again. That would be, well, _alright_ , the teen guessed. Alright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is as far as my pre-written stuff goes. More than likely, this will NOT be continued, though I remember what I was going to do, so I might actually get off my ass someday to do it. Depends on feedback and how much world-building I can stand before going crazy and getting to intimidated. :P

**Author's Note:**

> REALLY OLD. LIKE, WOAH. Reposted from the st_xi kink meme, I promise I'm the original author, and not just somebody with the same screen name.


End file.
